Today on the way to the hardware store, I saw this dragonfly. I have posted a blue dragonfly, a green dragonfly, and masses of dragonflies of an unknown color. (It was sunset at the time and we couldn't tell). This dragonfly was red. I read that red dragonflies come down from the highlands near the end of September. It is a sign of fall in Japan.
I have to admit that I waited for this dragonfly to light on this car's antenna. I wanted the smiley face looking down on it. That's what I had seen when I first walked up. The dragonfly then moved to another antenna. I had photographed dragonflies before so I knew it would keep making the rounds among two or three spots. I was right. It did. I had to wait a while. I snapped this photo really fast so it's not as close as I would have liked. She flew away so I didn't get another chance. Oh, the car was a yellow Volkswagon. We used to call them "Volkswagon Beetles" or "Bugs".
These things were hanging on the fence at the entrance to the temple grounds. You may have heard the story of the thousand cranes. Cranes are made and strung and presented to someone who is ill or is having hard times. I have heard varying accounts of what is done with the cranes afterwards. It seems someone brought them here as an offering. These are tiny cranes. Strings of a thousand cranes usually make a huge display. A piece of cloth and straw sandals are hanging next to the cranes.
This is a detail of the gate of the entrance to this temple. You see lots of dragons (there is one above this), but I have never seen this creature. It looks like an elephant.
I have never seen this creature before, either. It looked cute and fuzzy waddling along on this stone, but it looked a little like a moth caterpillar called kemushi. The hair of the kemushi is not as long and there is a yellow stripe down its back. Touching its hair will sting and burn your skin. This may not be in the same family, but I stayed away from it anyway.
This is the first green-eyed dragonfly I have ever seen.
No. They're dragonflies! The other evening there were hundreds of them hovering over the field behind our house. It was nearly impossible to take a picture of them, so sorry for the poor quality of this one. We just stood and enjoyed them for a while.
Today was hot and sunny. No surprise that people had their laundry and futon outside. Actually, I was surprised that there weren't very many futon out. On my way back home, it started to rain. As I passed this way again, the woman was scrambling to get her beds inside and I was carrying my dogs' toilet sheets over the camera case to keep it dry. She and I didn't watch the weather report this morning. There was a lot of thunder, too. No wonder there hadn't been many people out on the street as I was coming and going. The weather report includes thunder forecasts. The reports can be pretty accurate here, but not as accurate as they used to be when I first came to Japan in 1988. Baba usually watches me as I leave and tells me to take an umbrella. She was asleep on the sofa today when I left.
I took this picture of these two houses to show how close some houses are here. I am amazed how the sun makes its way through the most narrow and smallest places. These houses open to the west. Look between the houses at how much sun the house on the left gets even though the house on the right is so close. Amazing.
I saw these two dragonflies. I took many pictures of them trying to get a close-up. Each one would fly away and then light in only two places. The top two pictures are of the same dragonfly on her two chosen places. The one in the bottom picture chose another place that was too difficult for me to get close enough to take a picture so I only got this spot. My son said that many dragonflies came during pool time at school today. Some were red and some were orange. No blue ones went to his school.
I'll show you pictures from the hardware store tomorrow.
Listed here in For Kids- Japan
HTJ is listed here.
